ashie0610's birth story - VERY long! PIPs

ashie0610 · October 2014

TL;dr - DS2 arrived two days before his due date on October 3rd at 7 lbs, 13 oz; 21 inches long. I had a very positive VBAC attempt turned repeat c-section thanks to a surprise breech baby after my water broke in the middle of the night.

Here's the full story for those who like to read these.

I hadn't been sleeping well for a few days in a row and had been having tons of Braxton Hicks contractions, some of which were painful. Two days before my due date, I woke up around 2 am with a painful contraction and realized that I felt damp. I was wearing thick shorts and they were pretty wet, so I assumed I peed myself. I got up, changed into just a clean pair of underwear, and went back to bed. I slept maybe a few minutes, then woke up again feeling wet. I went to the bathroom to pee and didn't find anything unusual so I changed yet again and this time put on a liner. As soon as I laid back down in bed I felt a little gush and at that point was pretty sure my water broke. Every time I changed positions or the baby would move, I'd get additional little gushes. LO was moving a TON. I was also getting pretty consistent contractions, anywhere from 6 to 15 minutes apart.

I realized I was starving, so I got up to get something to eat, then called the on-call MW. She agreed it sounded like my water broke and asked me to come to the hospital around 9 am to get checked out. I called my mother to ask her to come stay with DS1, finished packing the last few things in our hospital bag, cooked myself some breakfast, and took a shower. Through all of this, the contractions slowed down quite a bit but when they would come they were pretty painful. I started timing them again and they were more like 15-20 minutes apart at this point.

My mom arrived shortly after DS1 woke up, so we were able to get him settled with breakfast and explain to him where we were going before we had to leave. We got to the hospital a little before 9 am where they confirmed that my bag of waters did indeed break. Since contractions had slowed down, they got us set up in our room and had me walking around, doing squats, and bouncing on a birthing ball to try to get things going for a couple of hours. They intermittently had me get on the monitor to see how baby was doing and he was still moving around a lot so they let me keep going. Around 10 am they checked me again. I was only a fingertip dilated and 50% effaced, so they told me to prepare for Pitocin within the next hour or so. Any time I got on the monitor and had a contraction lying down, it was much more painful so I decided that if I needed to stay on the monitor I would ask for an epidural when the time came.

Well, we never even got that far. My MW palpated my belly again and asked the nurse for an ultrasound machine. She said the baby seemed to be in a strange position and her hands didn't have her convinced that he was head down. I hadn't had an ultrasound since 19 weeks, but at every appointment since 34 weeks every MW and doctor I’ve seen has said he was vertex. He didn't seem to have shifted over the course of those six weeks from what I could tell based on hiccups, heartbeat, and what I was feeling, so I was a little nervous but not overly concerned.

My midwife was unfamiliar with the ultrasound machine they brought in and couldn't confirm baby's position, so we waited another hour for the on-call doctor from our practice to come in and take a look. I'm glad it took a while because it gave me a chance to get my thoughts together. DH and I had lunch together in the room (clear liquids only for me) and talked about how excited we were and how different this experience had been from DS1’s birth already.The doctor came in around noon and repeated the ultrasound. Against pretty high odds, little munchkin was BREECH, just like his big brother! Although he had to do it his way, of course - he was complete breech whereas DS1 was frank breech. I was in complete disbelief! I was so sure he was head down this whole time. I had dropped and everything. But it did explain why I wasn't dilating. With my water broken and a full-term sized baby, an external version to try to flip him was out of the question, and the risks of a vaginal breech delivery were way too high for me to even consider, so it would be a repeat c-section after all! They said it was NOT an emergency and I could take my time to process things while they figured out the OR schedule.

I thought I would cry but I didn't. Or couldn't, I don't know. I was actually surprised with how okay I was with it. I knew what to expect this time, and I wasn't being rushed into an OR. Most importantly, DS2 picked his own birthday. He was ready to come out and was telling my body so. For some reason, when I’d deliver was more important to me than how I’d deliver.

I've said all along that my goal with all of this was to be completely open to whatever needed to happen in order to have the safest possible delivery for me and baby. All along, they had encouraged a VBAC and felt that if I went into spontaneous labor on my own between 39-41 weeks that my chances of success were extremely high. I knew I could birth this baby however I needed to and I just would let fate take its course. A repeat c-section was absolutely necessary at this point and while I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, I was glad to know I’d be meeting my baby soon and that he’d be perfectly safe.

Around 1 pm, they confirmed that my c-section would be scheduled for 2 pm since they had to squeeze me in between other scheduled cesarean deliveries. Everything was very relaxed this time and it was such a different experience. I was in high spirits but a little afraid at times. They prepped me, then had the anesthesiologist come in and talk to me about what he was going to do. Anesthesia was a big issue for me last time, so we talked about what he'd do differently things time which totally put my mind at ease. The nurses all came in and introduced themselves and my midwife said she'd be scrubbing in as well to be there with me. They wheeled me down to the OR in a wheelchair since I was still having little gushes from my waters and then had me sit on the operating table to have the spinal placed. It went it painlessly and smoothly and within minutes I was numb from the ribs down. They didn't make me strap down my arms which I greatly appreciated and once the curtain was up, DH came in. By this point, the spinal block was in full effect and I was shaking like crazy.

They worked pretty quickly and I heard LO’s first cries at 3:04 pm on Friday, October 3rd, about 13 hours after my water broke. Everyone in the OR was saying how cute he was and how he came out with his legs crossed Indian-style. Apparently he was famous in the L&D wing for how he made his grand entrance, as some of the other nurses would pop in and say, "So you're the baby who came out Indian-style!"

They wiped him down and suctioned him off while he let out some good cries to get all the mucous out of his lungs. They brought him over to me after a few minutes where I could touch him and kiss him and he got real quiet and just looked at me with these huge eyes like, "Hey, I know you." I could not believe how much he looked like DS1 did when he was born. It was incredible. Before long they whisked him away to clean him up while I was put back together. This was the worst part for me. It felt so wrong to not be holding my baby. I asked DH to go with the baby to the nursery so I was pretty much alone staring at a blue curtain for what felt like a lifetime. I was still shaking pretty violently and I absolutely could not wait to hold that baby.

Finally they were done and I was wheeled to recovery. Everything about this delivery was so much clearer, I guess because it was calmer. I was still shaking a lot and my teeth were chattering from all the meds. They called to check on him and gave me his stats - 7 pounds, 13 ounces, 21 inches long. It felt like I had to wait quite a while before they finally wheeled him back in. I was so happy to see him and we immediately did skin to skin. He completely amazed me with how easily he could lift his head up to look at me. He just popped up off my chest and looked right into my eyes. He very quickly made his way over to my breast and latched on perfectly. He has been absolutely amazing with nursing and has almost made me forget how difficult breastfeeding was the first time around. My milk came in the end of day two.

Recovery has been going well. I was ridiculously itchy after surgery from the morphine and have a lot more bruising and swelling this time around but generally feel pretty good considering what we’ve gone through Today is day three and I'm getting around great. It’s looking like we will be discharged a day early and can’t wait to be home as a complete family. This has been such a great experience, certainly with its ups and downs, but I have absolutely no regrets this time around and am so happy to have this amazing little boy to snuggle!